Incapacity and information overload

Governance through Patterning Language (Part #3)

There are many new knowledge management tools -- and newer ones are emerging and envisaged. However it is quite unclear that computer augmented intelligence is actually responding to the challenge to the degree required by the challenge (and Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety). New capacities to make and look at patterns of information do not appear to be enabling action in response to the deteriorating conditions of the planet -- my planet.

Curiously the ills of society and the planet have never been better documented (cf Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential ***). This is matched by the most extensive security controls in the history of mankind on the part of democracies, through electronic and satellite surveillance -- beyond the dreams of the KGB and Stasi. People are even encouraged to report on each other to a much highder degree ("in the interests of national security"). "Threats" to society are now available at the touch of a finger to those who believe they have the capacity to act appropriately in response. And yet the level of incompetence continues to increase as most notably evident in post-invasion "nation-building" in Afghanistan and Iraq. As an exemplification of "worst practice" (without resource constraints), the appropriateness of efforts to identify "best practice" (despite severe resource constraints) is thereby called into question.

Given the availability of information, and the sophisticated "situation rooms" in which to assess appropriate responses, how is it that at the highest level (amongst elites) there is a pronounced tendency to rely on croneyism? (eg recognition that many agencies in the US have been "FEMAfied"; all decisions by Labour in the UK since the mid-1990's have been handled by Blair and his inner clique [more]) How is it that the most vital information is communicated phatically, in face-to-face interaction, rather than through the sophisticated tools designed to enhance the quality of decision making? Is this a means of using the limited ability to transfer information in such human contexts as a legitimate excuse for avoiding other information -- or for responding creatively to the challenge of information overload?

How is it that -- in my world -- increasing capacity has been matched to such a degree by increasing incapacity? What is this process of enantiodromia whereby the action of democracies in response to the evils of totalitarianism has resulted in the transformation of democracies to embody characteristics of that which they so righteously reviled? Is it my (in)competence in depending on such actors in the drama of my life that is being brought into question?

The argument is developed in the following separate documents:

Annex 1: Distinguishing Levels and Patterns of Strategic Obsolescence
Annex 2: Creative Cognitive Engagement: Beyond the Limitations of Descriptive Patterning
Annex 3: Dematerialization and Virtualization: Future Governance Implications and Applications